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Adrian Ostrogska
"Hoping to find some big, bad wolves are we, Ms. Riding Hood?" History Background Anyone who calls the Sept of the Green home knows the Ostrogska name, and with good reason. Three generations of purebred lineage, a long line of powerful warriors, countless tales of bravery and triumph against corruption, one caern Guardian, two Warders... the list goes on; just ask any of the surviving family members, chief among them the two eldest Ostrogska children. Sitting pretty at the head of the table these days is the older of the two siblings, Adrian, who's played the role of patriarch since his father's untimely death. But that's a detail for the end of the story, and this is just the beginning. The son of well-respected ahroun Fryderyk "Red-Skies-At-Morning" Ostrogska, Adrian was born in the States, the second-generation raised outside the familial homeland of Poland. The Baptism of Fire rite proved what the Ostrogskas had hoped, that Adrian was trueborn, and Fryderyk couldn't deny that the full moon overhead on the night of his son's birth was exactly what he had hoped for. Another warrior for the ranks, a strong candidate to carry on the family name and lineage with pride, truly there was no better fate he could wish for his firstborn. There must have been quite a lot of... celebrating going on immediately after the fact, because little more than nine months later the Ostrogskas welcomed a second son, Bernard. The odds of the newest arrival being one of Gaia's chosen children were slim, so when Bernard turned out to be born under the Seer's moon, it was a decidedly pleasant surprise. A theurge wasn't an ahroun, of course, but this wasn't seen as a failure in the least; in fact, quite the contrary. After all, how could incorporating one more of the five auspices into into the Ostrogska clan's lineage be a bad thing? The boys being so close in age brought with it a built-in rivalry that occasionally trodded into territory beyond the friendly sort, though such a thing was to be expected from two pre-pubescent boys full of more rage than the average, well, pre-pubescent boy. The grades they recieved in school, the cliques they ran with, the number of friends they had, the girls they dated, everything was a competition for the Ostrogska brothers, and it was the last point on that list that proved to be more trouble than either of them could have anticipated. Her first name was Victoria, her last has been forgotten over time, and the laundry list of reasons she was the top dog among the females at their private school isn't important to the story; no, the only thing that mattered was that both brothers wanted her. As with everything else between the two of them, winning the girl's affections became a competition, and things came to a head in the most rage-tastic of ways. Homecoming was on the horizon, which meant a dance, which meant the brothers both had the intention of asking what's-her-name to be their date, which meant a civil debate over who should have the honor. Or Bernard could get enraged enough to have his First Change and lunge at Adrian in a blind fury, claws out and at the ready, which is precisely what happened. An argument escalated into a full-blown, no-holds-barred throw down, with Adrian changing mere seconds after his brother, a fateful intervention that undoubtedly saved him from being slain by his brother's hand. The fight wasn't to last, however; Fryderyck was halfway up the stairs to the boy's room moments after the tussle broke out, and there was an odd but definite sense of pride in him that it took more that a few minutes to get the two cubs seperated and calmed down. Victoria was easily forgotten in the days that followed. Adrian and Bernard had far more pressing things to deal with, including an official induction into the Sept of the Green and a subsequent Rite of Passage, something they were assigned to complete together, alongside three other would-be cliaths. The Rite was simple; deliver a message-- by foot-- to the Sept of the White Water in Niagra. Adrian found the assignment almost insulting, asking Mother Larissa if they had to take the One Ring all the way into Mount Doom or if it would be okay to just sort of toss it over the rim before the Elder cuffed him upside the back of the head and told them all to get a move on. A trip into Mordor may very well have been a more pleasant one. Instead of a hearty hello from the members of the sept, the pack was greeted with what looked like the end result of a very brutal and very recent bloodbath: White Water was a desolace, dead bodies strewn across the landscape, Garou and kin alike, the former of which were skinned nearly to the bone. Dumbfounded, shocked, disgusted, terrified, there were no words potent enough to describe what the unsuspecting pack of cubs barely quivering against the membrane of their twenties were feeling as they surveyed the caern. But there was little time to stop and take it all in. A group of Skin Walkers had raided the camp, looking to add to their numbers, and the pack had shown up before the Walkers had left the scene. Assuming the cubs were part of the White Water sept that they hadn't yet taken care of, the Skin Walkers attacked. Two of the packmates fell near-instantly, leaving the other three to scurry off in a panic; they may have had a great and unrelenting power inside them, but having it and properly knowing how to use it were still two very different things for the small group of cubs. Frantic shifting bred a surge of adrenaline, likely the only thing that allowed the inexperienced threesome to aggressively and sloppily take down one of the Skin Dancers, but its cohorts weren't as easy to drop. The third member of the brother's original pack was cut down as the group attempted to escape, with Bernard narly sharing the same fate. The theurge was injured to the point of unconsciousness, but before he completely went under, he urged his brother to slip into the Umbra, an order Adrian was all too quick to follow. The reflective water of the falls were enough to let them crossover into the spirit world, a place Adrian was decidedly unfamiliar with, but by some grace of Gaia the spirits therein were kind--or perhaps wise-- enough to keep the group of corrupted would-be shifters out, sorrowful over the loss at the sept. Mother Larissa had made it explicitly clear that taking advantage of the convenience of a moon bridge would be going against the rules of the rite, but Adrian found it hard to worry about such things when he was carrying what he assumed was about to be his dead brother's body in his arms. When the two crossed back out of the Umbra on the other side of the bridge, the shocked looks of the other sept member's faces were one of the last things Adrian conciously remembered seeing before slumping to the ground out of exhaustion. The healers got to work at once, and the unresponsive nature of the two boys didn't lend itself well to the questioning brought forth by the higher ups in the sept. It was days before anyone got the full story out of either brother, and even when it was declared that they had both been earned the rank of cliath, Adrian found it hard to feel very celebratory given the circumstances. But trauma is dealt with differently by everyone, and after the initial shock wore off, Adrian found it was easier to throw himself into his duties and began to prove himself as quite the follower of his father's footsteps. The competitive nature between himself and his brother didn't disappear entirely after the harrowing events of their Rite, but Adrian found himself appreciating his sibling more than he had before the endeavor, and while he initially assumed he and Bernard would most likely veer off into separate packs after they reached cliath staus, the opposite turned out to be true. Focusing on climbing the ranks in the sept became an almost all-encompassing goal for Adrian. The prestige was nice, as was the praise from his elders for every job well done, but the truth of the matter was Adrian didn't want to ever be caught as unprepared as he had been during that First Rite ever again. Yes, he was just a cub at the time, didn't have the skill set of a true ahroun, but that didn't matter. No, what mattered was becoming better, stronger, smarter, more well-prepared, so that he would never again have to stand by helplessly as his kin and kind were struck down in front of him. It was that drive and determination that earned him the role of Guardian of the sept, assisting his father the Warder in ensuring the caern was kept safe. Bernard found a niche in the sept hierarchy as well, achieving the role of Spirit Caller, and for a good long while all the men of the Ostrogska clan handily held onto their prominent roles. It wasn't until Fryderyck's death that things changed, both in the family's sept and personal lives; up until that point, all the Garou in the family had died honorable deaths in battle, fighting tooth and nail against corruption until the bitter end. The brothers decided to come up with a passable lie as to how their father met his end, weaving some tale of a rogue spirit with vengeful intent, because telling the truth was far too embarrassing a notion for a pureblood line with as much prestige as their own; Fryderyk had died ala Elvis, that is, having his ticker go out while he was holed up in the bathroom. A truly un glorious way to go, and to this day, that only three souls who truly know what happened to the great Red-Skies-At-Morning are Adrian, Bernard, and their mother, though there are more than a few members of the sept who have an inkling that the rogue spirit story is total and utter hogwash. These days, the role of Warder is filled by Adrian, who took up his father's mantle after the ahroun's death. He doesn't venture far from the caern unless truly necessary, intent on serving his father's memory well by keeping up a solid defense around the bawn. Continuing Adventures To be added. Death To be added. Personality Fun-loving, excitable, funny, outgoing; these are all words that are absolutely not easy to associate with Adrian. He's the sort of man who was old from the day he was born, the field commander of the No Fun Allowed Brigade. Serious almost to a fault, the few occasions wherein Adrian does manage to crack a smile, the circumstances are rarely ever joyous, and the smile itself could easily be mistaken for a sneer. Some might accuse the man of putting up a front, of adhering to the expectations one would have for an Ahroun of his status; those people are sorely mistaken. Adrian is hardly an anomaly in his family. The Ostrogskas as a whole are a generally stoic bunch, and saying that Adrian follows in his father's footsteps isn't exactly an overstatement. High expectations were set from the get-go, and more often than not, readily met. Book smarts came easily and early, and physical prowess in spades some time later, helping to create perhaps the world's most unassuming-looking alpha male. But Adrian uses his stature to his advantage: no one expects the pencil-thin, wirey-limbed, trust-fund kid to be hiding a hulking rage beast under his tailored Fiorvanti suit, after all. The stereotype for most Ahroun involves phrases like "battle-hardened", "bloodthirsty", and "unstoppable murder machine", and in Adrian's case, these tropes hold some truth. He didn't earn his position in the sept by not having a certain finesse on the battlefield, and Adrian takes his role very seriously. If the caern isn't well-protected, if its defensive aren't up to snuff, if something that shouldn't be snooping about slips inside, it all falls on him, and he's the sort of man who simply does not tolerate failure, either from himself or his cohorts. Any cliath or cub assigned to help him keep the defenses steady had better have their shit together; if they don't, they'll find their replacement telling them to pack it up and move out so fast it's liable to make their head's spin. And that's only if Adrian's feeling particularly generous, which he, unsurprisingly, usually isn't. To say Adrian doesn't have a sense of humor is a bit of an exaggeration, it's just that, well, what he finds humorous is likely not what most everyone else does. Still, laughter isn't exactly his forte. This is a man prone to offering up an unnerving, curt little grin when he finds something funny. The few people who've actually heard him laugh would most likely call the sound a snickering, trill, decidedly unpleasant noise. So it's probably for the best that his serious, no-nonsense attitude doesn't lend itself well to busting a gut. At least not in the metaphorical sense; physically, however, there's a laundry list of enemies that have found themselves dealing with just that scenario. Appearance To be added. Gifts * Persuasion * The Falling Touch * Aura of Confidence * Luna's Armor * Sense Silver * Silver Claws Relations * Fryderyk Ostrogska (father - deceased) * Anita Ostrogska (mother) * Bernard Ostrogska (brother) Quotes * "Oh? Should we all take up prancing about the city announcing ourselves? Would that be more to your liking?" * "Do I seem the type to have the time to humor anyone?" Category:Garou Category:Shadow Lords Category:Character